


quake

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-07-23 11:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20007925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: Opal City didn't get earthquakes.





	quake

Opal City didn't get earthquakes. Alex Danvers had moved to Opal City precisely because it didn't get earthquakes.

Growing up north in quiet Midvale, even her first move to National City for college had been a bit of an adjustment for Alex. She had been no stranger to change, though, and better adapted to surviving upheaval than most. She had survived the move to the big city, and even thrived, finding employment after college in the local branch of the DEO, and rising to vice head of her department in less than five years.

Then, the accident had happened. Alex had been riding her Ducati along her usual morning work route on the highway, when the jack-knifing truck had come at her. Alex had seen it careen towards her as if in slow motion, and yet she still hadn't been fast enough to evade it entirely. The aftermath of it all was that Alex, after months of physical therapy, had been lucky enough to come out alive, albeit with her motor senses gone haywire.

After that, living in National City had become a nightmare. The coastal city had more than its fair share of noticeable earthquakes each year, and thousands of smaller tremors, but they'd never been a big deal to Alex before. After her accident, even the smallest tremor, that she would otherwise not even have felt, had been hell on her nerves and bones. 

By the end of the first year of this, Alex had been ready to give it all up, quit her career and any chance of the life she had planned out for herself. And then, the news had come of a transfer available in the Opal City branch of the DEO.

Opal City, named for the lake that ringed almost the entire perimeter of it, making it close to an island of its own, was as serene as it got. Despite it being a sizeable and bustling city, Alex felt a sense of peace in it that had forever evaded her in breakneck-paced National City.

It had really been the perfect transfer. Opal City was beautiful. Opal City was queit. Opal City didn't get earthquakes.

Until now.

\---

When the earthquake hit, Alex was by the cereal stand in the convenience store nearest her house, trying to tease down her usual box. Then, she felt the ground shake.

The tremors lasted barely half a minute, dislodging a few packets of chips off the stands, but it felt like an era. Alex gritted her teeth through it, fingers knuckled white around one of the stands. It was stupid, she knew, to be rattled by something this small, but her nerves felt like they were on fire, and she felt close to passing out. Not to mention, she knew that her never-fully-healed legs were going to hurt like hell later. 

After the tremors passed, she was shakily straightening herself, and trying to get her bearings again, when Alex noticed the figure crouched on the ground, on the other side of the stands. The crouched woman was breathing hard, with her eyes screwed shut and her hands over her ears. Alex stared, feeling that she ought to do something. She thought she'd reacted badly to the quake, but this woman was having an objectively worse time than her.

Without thinking too hard about it, Alex rushed over to her, one hand outreached. 

"It's okay," she said quietly, reaching out and patting her shoulder from a distance. When that didn't get her a negative response, she edged closer, and threw an arm around the still-huddled woman. "It's over now. You're going to be okay." 

Wild green eyes flew open, and looked at Alex.

"I'm sorry," the other woman said, although she sounded more angry than sorry, with her words coming out through clenched teeth. The anger didn't seem to be directed at Alex, but at herself. "It's the noise, I can't-"

She gritted her teeth, and screwed her eyes shut again, which confused Alex, because it hadn't been noisy at all, as far as earthquakes went. Then again, she hadn't exactly been the best judge of senses since her accident, so she let it go.

The stranger was shaking. Without thinking about it, Alex took off her jacket, and put it over her.

"It's okay, you're going to be okay," she repeated, figuring that the rhythm of the trite words, rather than their meaning, would help calm the woman down. "This sort of thing is really rare around here. It'll pass soon, and you'll be okay."

It took a couple of minutes before the woman seemed to come back to herself. She gave a shake of her body, dislodging Alex's arms with it, and pulled herself up by clinging to the stand she'd been crouched by.

"Thank you." Again, the words came out reluctantly, as if the speaker begrudged owing them to Alex.

"It's cool," Alex said. "You okay now?"

The stranger scrubbed a hand over her face, leaving streaks of wet sweat behind. She seemed about to answer, then they were both interrupted.

"Ma'ams, are you okay?"

It was the cashier, a teenage part-timer who was looking wild-eyed and worried, as he rushed to them. Alex surmised that he was one of those recent summer-time hires who was worried that the ladies were going to yell at him, make the earthquake out to be somehow his fault, and get him fired. She set about to soothing him, too.

By the time she had calmed him down, and checked out her cereal, the other woman had left the store. Alex didn't think much more about it, until she was almost home, which was when she realized that she had forgotten to take back her jacket from the woman. 

Oh well, she had a lot more; collecting jackets was practically Alex's hobby.

\---

It took a few days for Alex to settle down from the quake, and convince herself that it was a one-off freak occurence, and not a cause to immediately move cities again. By the end of the week, she had managed to forget about it for the most part, until there was a knock on her townhouse door on the evening of the Saturday.

Alex wasn't usually one to answer the door to random callers, but a casual glance through the eyehole brought her up short. Behind the door was not some unfamiliar door-to-door salesman, or a nosy neighbour.

Alex hesitated, traced back her steps to her desk, and took out her DEO-issued gun from the top drawer. She unlatched the safety, and set the gun down on her writing table, before heading back to the door and unlocking it.

On the other side of the door stood the same woman whom Alex had encountered at the convenience store the week before.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello," Alex echoed automatically, before she gave herself a shake. "What are you doing here?"

"It took me a while to find you," her visitor said, as if that was an adequate answer. "My apologies for that."

"Find me?" Alex asked, staring at her.

Seeming not to find anything odd about that, the woman nodded.

"I'm afraid you're not easy to track, not to mention that I was occupied with my own work for most of the week, so I have not had much time to search until today."

Alex didn't what to say in reply to that. She gave another glance back at her gun, before turning back to her visitor, wondering if this might be the day that she finally needed to use it. This stranger - albeit a very attractive stranger who had not behaved threateningly towards her so far - had tracked her down to her house without provocation, and that could not mean anything good.

Then, Alex breathed easier, when the woman held up the bundle in her arms, which turned out to be a crumpled, yet very familiar, jacket.

"This is yours, I believe."

"Oh," Alex breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, _that's_ why-"

She took the jacket back and gave a small polite smile to the woman, who was still standing there, her back awkwardly straight.

"Thanks for bringing it back, um..." Alex paused meaningfully.

"Astra. My name is Astra."

"Astra," Alex echoed, studying her.

She was starting to feel a little awkward, wondering if she should invite the woman in, or politely hint at her to go away, when Astra spoke again.

"You were very kind to me, but I'm afraid I cannot marry you," she said, looking grave.

Alex stared. "What?"

"I know it's what the tradition dictates," Astra continued. "But, it's a bit old-fashioned, don't you think, to marry someone simply because they gave you their coat, or you took theirs? Granted, it worked out rather well for my sister, but not every meets the love of their life and knows them at first sight. I really feel one ought to get to know each other, before taking such a step."

"Excuse me?" Alex asked, wondering if the woman was drunk.

Astra stared at her, and the intensity faded from her eyes.

"Oh, you did not mean-"

She trailed off abruptly, looking puzzled and thoughful at once.

"Mean what?" Alex squeaked out.

"Your coat," Astra said. "You gave me your coat."

Alex continued to imitate a gaping fish, as she tried to work it out.

She had heard the legends about Opal Lake, and about who the inhabitants of Opal City were descended from. But, they were just legends. They weren't real. They weren't-

Then again, aliens weren't supposed to be real, either, but Alex was helping rehome new ones at the DEO every single day.

"You're a selkie," she said.

Astra nodded. "And you are... not interested in marriage, clearly."

Alex shook her head, and held the jacket a little tighter to her, in absence of pearls to clutch. Everything made so much more sense. The way that Astra had seemed to hear noises that Alex couldn't, even after Alex had thought the quake was over, and just how much more agitated she had seemed about it all. Where Alex's senses had been going into overdrive during the quake, Astra's must have been going absolutely haywire.

"It looks like there's been a misunderstanding," Alex finally said. "I just moved here like, five months ago."

Understanding slowly dawned over Astra's eyes.

"Clearly a misunderstanding, then," she agreed. She looked relieved, but Alex could also read some disappointment in her eyes, as she looked over her. "Well, I should be going. It was nice to meet you, Alex Danvers."

Alex didn't bother asking Astra how she knew her name, considering that she'd already tracked her down to her home. She simply nodded, watching as Astra turned and headed down the stairs of the townhouse. Alex watched her mutely until she was halfway down, before her mouth remembered to work.

"Hey, um-"

Astra stopped, and looked back up.

"It's not marriage or anything," Alex said, rubbing the back of her neck. "But, would you be interested in grabbing a coffee tomorrow morning? I don't actually know if selkies drink coffee, or if you're free then, or-"

"We do," Astra cut in quickly. "And, I am."

"Oh," Alex said. "Great."

She stared down awkwardly at Astra, and got an equally awkward stare back up.

"Goodbye," Astra finally said, and Alex was pretty sure that she wasn't imagining the slight flush on her cheeks.

"Bye," Alex replied. She was unable to keep a smile off her own face, because the selkie really was kind of adorable, despite her weirdly awkward behaviour, and no could deny that she was beautiful, especially when she was directing her own slight smile at Alex.

Astra gave a stiff-armed wave, and then she was gone into the night, disappearing as unexpectedly as she had come.

Alex stared out into the dark for a long time, feeling some strange and yearning sense of loss, before she gave herself a shake and went back inside her house, wondering if she'd just imagined the entire encounter. She supposed she would find out the next evening, at their first date.

\---


End file.
